Samsung Plasma - convince me?

I have the PN63C800 and it looks awesome in 3D. Very little crosstalk at all and none in games. Motorstorm looks pretty good in 3D. Super Stardust looks even better.

I happy with my pn58c8000 (as I said in my Amazon review). Though I have a PS3, I know almost nothing about PS3 gaming, but just for you, I turned on my PS3 and looked for a 3d demo I might have downloaded. The only thing I could find was a WipeOut HD demo, which took about an hour to download some revisions, but I stumbled through a practice race. I didn't see any trace of ghosting in my 10 minute trial run, and the track looked quite nice. I don't really know what you mean by pixelization, but I've never seen any break up of the picture into small blocks on this TV. I couldn't tell you about delay or anything more subtle, since I was mostly smashing into the sides of the track.

I'm trying to download a Motostorm demo, but it looks like it is going to take awhile.

I'm giving up on Motostorm, for now. I can play the demo, but though it starts in 3d mode, for some reason it changes back to 2d mode. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't stay in 3d.

I also have the Samsung PN63C8000 3D plasma. I've had it for about 10 days and I'm very happy with it so far.

Crosstalk and ghosting do happen from time to time are minor at best (I have the latest firmware) and the range of image tweaking options (brightness, contrast, etc) allow you to really dial in the image to your liking.

I also have the Motorstorm Pacific Rift 3D demo and have played it extensively. The 3D effect in the game is outstanding and I have not experienced any ghosting or crosstalk with it, though in all honesty the action is so fast and furious that it could well be occurring and i just haven't noticed it.

I also have Wipeout HD and Superstardust HD, both of which natively support 3D on the PS3. Again, the sense of depth is outstanding and crosstalk/ghosting really isn't an issue for me.

If you game extensively, you still need to be careful of static huds. After playing the Avatar 3D game I'd noticed a bit of image retention but it quickly faded away. This is a plasma TV so you can't get carried away with marathon gaming sessions on games with static huds.

The 2D>3D conversion also works well and, again, dialing in the settings can improve the experience dramatically. I've watched several BluRay movies including Star Trek:II The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and in each case there were plenty of scenes where the faux 3D effect was very visible and added a new facet to the image.

So yeah, there is a lot to like with the Samsung plasmas.

I was torn between the Samsung C8000 Plama and C8000 LED. After reading about them, I went with the C8000 LED.

Why... . One reason I am buying a new TV is severe burn in on two older Mitsubishi TV's. I don't want to chance burn in again on a new TV. And I am worried about the potential for "buzzing".

I too am heavily trying to decide this week.

It definately seems to be between the Panasonic 3d plasma and Samsung 3d Plasma.

Most review sites have people giving negative comments, but then I find that that when they complain about ghosting and crosstalk issues they have a Samsung LED, some had black issues and I found they had the 7000 series or earlier.

Most reviews I read says the Samsung 8000 is rated just under the Panasonic, and definately the Panasonic wins......UNTIL you factor in the 2d to 3d conversion.

Panasonic doesn't have 2d to 3d and the factory says they won't add it since it doesn't offer true 3d.

But I have read that some movies, some Tv channels, and most important to me, some current games like HALO and GEARS OF WAR, rock out with the 2d to 3d conversion.

So, I place the 2d to 3d as one of the most important reasons to buy now...Technology will be changing big time over the next couple years, so I'm thinking Samsung wins.

Anyone compared truely on the gaming side? Anyone played Xbox in 2d to 3d convert on the Samsung? How is it?

you mean minor at worst?

That's correct; poor wording on my part.

With the latest firmware installed, occurrences of crosstalk on the Samsung PN63C8000 plasma have been infrequent and generally very minor when they do occur. Hope that's a little more clear.

Well you can see a comparison of sorts that cnet did for 3D TV's. Panny is # 1 for sure while the Sammy Plasma and Sony getting a very close score for 2nd place. I would stick with Plasma tech for sure as LCD still haven't convinced me. Here is a link
http://reviews.cnet.com/2795-6482_7-...rColumnArea1.2
Panny gets a high score for 2D which I assume you will be watching for 95% of the time for a while.

I would like to react to this :


I would like to remind you that whatever screen technology you use, you cannot tilt your head freely. Your eyes must always line up with the image separation angle (which is always horizontal by default)

LCD with shutter glasses will never allow tilting your head, but even if you have plasma or DLP, tilting your head on 3D movies or 3D TV broadcasts is impossible.
In order to be able to tilt your head, you need a real time generated content (game or VR application), you need a head tracking device and you need the head tracking software to cummunicate with the 3D software to modify the image according to the angle of your head.

Keep that in mind if you want to tilt your head.

complete rubbish, i own the samsung plasma 63C7000 (the UK equivalent of your usa C8000).

I often lie down on my chair and this has no effect on the 3d effect.

For me in the UK the difference between the panny and the samung is over £2000 which is complete madness.

The samsung is a wonderful set and it looks so much more appealing than the panny 3d sets.

Also for the person dissing the image retention of the plasma - again complete rubbish from my experience. I bought my set and wanted to enjoy it. I did not want to use break in slides - all i wanted to do was to enjoy my TV.I was sensible though and get it in movie mode which is perfect for my viewing. i also have 3 children and they often pause my sky tv (like cable) for ages without there being any damage done to the set. I also play games for hours on end and have seen no trace of any Image retention.

just enjoy the thing

according to cnet who compared the sammy to the panny the 3d was actually better on the samsung - same amount of crosstalk but the colour range was better on the sammy - check out cnet's review

Complete BS> I can tilt my head as much as I want the it still works fine in 3D.

You can tilt your head all you want with Plasma 3dtv and shutter glasses. There is absolutely no reason you couldn't unless the plasma TV had some sort of polarized coating/filter on the display glass to reduce glare. As far as I know, no such filter exists on any model plasma 3dtv.

You can't tilt your head with shutter glasses on a LCD, the same as you can't with polarized sun glasses with a LCD. The light from any LCD is polarized, and if you are wearing glasses that are polarized, you must keep the glasses perfectly aligned so that all the polarized light can make it through to your eyes.

For this reason alone, I am not a fan of LCD based 3DTVs.

If you tilt your head with LCD 3dtv, the picture goes away. If you tilt your head with plasma 3dtv, you still see a picture, but the 3d effect goes away. BlackShark is entirely correct.

It does not alter at all on my samsung 3d plasma. The 3d effect is the same.

Yeah, I'd like to know why some people think tilting your head on a plasma would change or disrupt the 3d effect? Half the glasses are turned completely off/black by the lcd shutter, no matter what angle, you shouldn't be able to see from that eye. The other eye should see the content perfectly fine no matter what angle, assuming the light from the plasma is not polarized by some other filter.

Greglee, please explain the technical reason for this phenomenon you are certain exists.

Otherwise, there's every reason to think that you and blackshark are entirely incorrect.

I'll try. The stereoscopic effect used in 3dtv depends on a correspondence between the views you see with your two eyes and the pictures taken by two cameras. You see a scene as though your eyes were in the positions of the cameras. 3dtv uses two cameras side by side, oriented horizontally, so that is how your eyes must also be oriented, to maintain the correspondence between the camera views and what your eyes would see if you were at the scene in person.

Interesting point. I believe that would only be an issue if your head was totally 90 degrees sideways.

With shutter glasses, each eye is fed an unique image sequentially, the left eye is fed an image from the "left camera" while the right eye is blacked out, and vice versa. No amount of tilting your head will remove that particular delivery.

Tilting your head and LCD screens exposes a problem stictly to do with polarization. Even slightly tilting your head would prevent much of the light from reaching your eyes. Plasma does not suffer from that specific issue.

However, as you say, I could see an issue with the fact that you eyes are not oriented horizontally as the cameras. If your head was 90 degrees (completely sideways), each eye would still be fed clear and unique image but those images would be showing depth across the horizontal while your brain is expecting depth across the vertical since you are looking at the image sideways.
I admit this would be an issue, and would likely remove the 3d effect, or worse, make things unwatchable. However I think as long as your eyes are not totally sideways, your brain would still interpret some of the horizontal depth available quite easily. This is a stark difference from the LCD polarizing issues seen when only tilting your head slightly.

In the real world, I would expect depth perception in the horizonal plane to fall off gradually (linearly / sinusoidally?) as you tilt your head. As the horizontal seperation between the eyes approaches zero (90 deg tilt), stereoacuity falls off. You can approximate this by closing one eye with your head in any position. However, the brain can still create "depth" using other cues (relative shadowing / size).

With 3D TV, your brain is processing two images with fixed / predetermined horizontal offsets. From what I've read, the perception of depth actually increases with smaller eye separation (e.g., children perceive much more depth than adults). That effect may break down at a net zero eye sepration (90 deg tilt).

All this being said, when viewing 3d programming on my plasma, my brain perceives or creates depth in any head orientation.

Chapter 2 of this paper provides some interesting insights.

http://www.dur.ac.uk/n.s.holliman/Pr...ons/3dv3-0.pdf

I have to disagree with your 3D analysis.

I had BestBuy update a Samsung 58" 3D to the latest firmware available (1022).
I then had them go to the "bridge scene" and looked at the red suspension pieces holding up the bridge. The crosstalk/ghosting was terrible; no improvement with the latest firmware upgrade.

I then had them play the same scene on the 54" Panasonic 3D TV and the result; NO ghosting on the red suspension pieces.

The Panny is considerably better as far as 3D is concerned.

I've seen Monsters Vs. Aliens multiple times on my Samsung 63" (1026 firmware) using my Samsung 6900 3D bluray player (also has up to date FW). Having read about this problematic scene I made a point to see how it looked on my TV, and having watched it several times I see no ghosting at all. Zero. Zip. Nada.

If anything, there were other scenes in the movie that were more problematic, such as the one where Susan is sitting on the gas station at night (right before she's abducted by the spaceship). That was about the only time where the ghosting was really distracting.

Maybe there was significant improvement between 1022 and 1026 but on my TV at least, the ghosting in the bridge scenes is no longer an issue and hasn't been for a while.

I compared a Samsung with the player and T.V. updated against one without the player and T.V. updated specifically looking at the bridge scene in MvA. No obvious "ghosting" with both player and T.V. updated and it looked very good. Very obvious "ghosting" with the player and T.V. that hadn't been updated. I personally think the Panny has the best 3D, but the Samsung is very good and has 2D to 3D conversion, which for some material I like. Right now it is very difficult to determine just how these T.V.s compare due to the the potential variables with respect to fw upgrades for both T.V.s and BD 3D players and so on. I think most of this will be sorted out over the next year or so.

I have the 63" Samsung C8000 plasma and the Panasonic 350 Blu-ray player. I wanted the Panasonic player's dual HDMI outputs so I wouldn't lose HD audio. I don't see any ghosting in the bridge scene with upgraded firmware (I think I'm at version 1022 now). I'm the one who pointed out the ghosting in that scene here on AVS when I noticed it on the first Samsung LED set. It's always something I look for.

There's little question in my mind that the Panasonic plasmas have the edge in black level and dark scene contrast over the Samsung plasma sets. In bright scenes, I prefer the Samsung set. The huge difference between the two technologies is 2D to 3D conversion. Samsung has it and Panasonic doesn't. That was a big mistake on Panasonic's part.

Anyone with half an eye is not going to confuse faux 3D for the real thing. When I first saw it, it bothered me so much that I thought it would be worse than useless. But, it started to grow on me, and I now find myself liking it. I could wax philosophical about why that is, and others could rip me up and down and compare it to colorizing black and white movies. None of that matters. Even when a lot of 3D becomes available, I think I'll still enjoy watching fake 3D. The simple fact is that I see things with fake 3D that I never noticed before, even in 2D material I've seen many times.

Fake 3D also helps me appreciate real 3D. I think it's somewhat similar to the way in which bad acting helps me appreciate good acting. When fake 3D fails (and it does fail - often, and often very badly), it teaches me something about why good 3D works. And when fake 3D works, it can be remarkably effective. That's why Samsung made the right decision and Panasonic blew it. If I don't want to use conversion, I don't have to turn it on. I can't turn it on with a set that doesn't have it. Samsung was able to include it in its sets and charge less. That trumps Panasonic's advantages for me, and by a large margin.

Have to agree with TonyDP. I have the Sammy 58C8000 and watched Monsters vs Aliens several times and I also saw nothing, nada, zip, zero. In all honesty, you really cannot go wrong with either set. With the picture quality being very close I decided to go with Sammy due to Samsung offering the free C6900 blu-ray player, 2 pairs of 3D glasses and Monsters vs Aliens 3D DVD was the ultimate deciding factor for me. The Sammy is a beautiful set and more pleasing to the eye than Panasonic. The cabinet on the Panny is a bit dated. Also, this will be my second Sammy plasma and both did not buzz.

As a side note, the wife and I watched Ninja Assassin Blu-ray dvd last night. The blu-ray quality is absolutely stunning..... This dvd is a must see. Granted it will not win an academy award because the plot is blah, but, the blu-ray and fight scenes are spectacular.